Photo of the Day: September 2020
A rickshaw puller takes children to school in Kolkata, India. When this photo was published in April 2008, Kolkata was considering banning rickshaws completely.
A story in the April 2009 issue detailed the ruinous droughts Australia has experienced on and off for decades. Here, sisters ride in the family's truck to check on their wheat fields, which haven't seen a drop of rain in months.
A lioness retreats from her attack on a Cape buffalo after the rest of the herd comes to its aid in Botswana's Okavango Delta.
Hasidic men in a Jerusalem market appraise chickens to use during the kapparot ceremony the eve of Yom Kippur. In the ritual, the chicken assumes the sin of the person, before being slaughtered and later consumed in soup.
Two butterflies float on water in Arizona's Ramsey Canyon Preserve. This river valley holds one of the most varied collections of species in the United States.
Actress Fay Wray of King Kong fame visits the Empire State Building in 1988, more than 50 years since her last visit. Wray died in 2004.
This photo of a napping mother and her children in Mali was the cover of the May 1998 issue. Inside was the story of a decades-long drought and its effect on this nomadic people—just one result of our ever-warming world.
When this photo of a northern white rhinoceros at the San Diego Animal Park was published in July 1993, the animal was one of a few dozen of its kind left in the world. Now, only two remain.
College students in Amherst, Massachusetts, register to vote shortly after Congress passed the 26th Amendment – which lowered the national voting age from 21 to 18.
Spring fog drifts over a Pennsylvania apple orchard at sunrise.
Cyclists from all over Europe await the start of the Tour de France in the early 1950s. The famous race takes place over 23 days, and covers more than 2,000 miles.
Novice monks enjoy a break under prayer flags at Kurjey Lhakhang, a monastery in Bhutan that holds the remains of the country's first three kings.
A Hasidic Jewish man in Ukraine immerses himself before Rosh Hashanah in a quarry pool that serves as a mikvah, a body of water used for spiritual cleansing.
A teacher explains molecular construction to a room of students in Conakry, Guinea. This story from the August 1966 issue tracked the West African nation's progress after declaring independence from France in 1958.
Climbers rest on Pico Espejo before beginning the trek up Pico Bolívar, the mountain on the left, which is Venezuela's highest peak. The photo appeared in the March 1963 issue, which documented the country's first few years of democratic governance.
A story in the December 2015 issue explored how cultures across the world revere and celebrate the Virgin Mary. Here, dancers in Haiti prepare for a midnight ceremony in honour of Ezili Danto, the Black Madonna.
A camper van drives through rural Baja California, Mexico, passing numerous cardon cacti. This type of cactus can live for hundreds of years and grow to more than 60 feet tall.
A Nenets woman in Russia hugs her grandson. The family is preparing to follow their herd of reindeer, seen in the background, even farther into the Siberian Arctic.
Sugarcane towers over a field worker north of Karachi, Pakistan, in this picture from a 1967 story. Even now, Pakistan is one of the world's leading producers of sugarcane.
The view from the New Jersey Meadowlands used to include the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Every September 11, the U.S. stops to remember the lives lost in the 2001 terrorist attack.
A clinic in Pokrovskoye, Russia, transforms into a fourth-grade classroom after the local school's heating system broke. For a lake-front town in Siberia, heat is not optional.
The Atacama Desert in South America is the driest desert in the world, receiving an average of half an inch of rain a year. But sometimes snowmelt and water from springs combine to create high-altitude lakes, where migratory flamingos may stop to rest.
A May 1995 story documented Oman's efforts at modernising. Here, a Bedouin woman participates in an adult literacy class while her granddaughters look on.
A surfing contest turns into a sunbathing session at Camp Pendleton, Virginia Beach. This U.S. military-owned strip of beach adjoins more than seven miles of public beaches.
A story in the July 1926 issue explored the "Streets and Palaces of Colourful India." Here, a Brahman, or Hindu priest, reads a sacred text in Varanasi, India.
Cyclists ride through Ferrara, Italy. The walled city sits on the Po River, and has seen some form of settlement since at least the sixth century B.C.
Summertime bathers at Lake Urmia, Iran, wade into waters colored red by bacteria and algae. Tourists from across Iran have come here for generations, but the number of visitors has fallen as the lake has shrunk some 80 percent since the 1980s.
A sunny spotlight provides a warm place for a young dance student to limber up in a studio at the Juilliard School in the Lincoln Centre complex, New York City.
Children play in water in Salvador, Brazil. The joyous scene, published in September 1992, belies the history of the plaza, where enslaved people were publicly whipped for supposed crimes.
Inspirational graffiti adorns an abandoned building on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, around the corner from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, birthplace. This photo appeared in the July 1988 issue, as Atlanta prepared to host that year's Democratic National Convention.
